Yamaki's Story
by DarkGatomon
Summary: This is a slightly dark story concerning Hypnos's Yamaki. Its main point is who he was, and what he's become. I'm personally fond of this story... why don't you give it a look?


Author's Note: This fic is dedicated with great love to Shadow Takeru. This is not because I think he will like it, but because without him I never would have thought up the idea or written down the words. May it provide some small amusement to him and others.

I do not own any of the characters used here. Nor do I claim to own what I did with them -- I am sure others have had the same thoughts before. The facts of this story are based only loosely upon the happenings of the show. Many have been altered for my purposes, and if such things distress you, it would probably make you happier if you did not read this. My only specific note on this issue is that Taichi is 30 at the "present day" used here. The ages of everyone else can be worked out from this according to your own personal timeline of births.

If I may please quote Mark Twain before I begin: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

Yamaki's Story  
by DarkGatomon  
Dedicated to Shadow Takeru

12 years ago...  
"NO! Patamon, don't leave me.. no, you can't... _please_... PATAMON!!"

"I'm sorry, TK.... I can't... I just can't..." His blue eyes closed for the last time...

"PATAMOOOOOON!!"

There was nothing he could do. His partner became a stream of light... slipping through his grasp... and was gone forever.

10 years ago...  
"I'm sorry, Takeru. I helped you as much as I could... If you don't want help after this long, though... well, I did all I could. If you ever change your mind, then, well, you know I love you and always want to be here for you." And then his love, his darling Hikari, turned away... turned away and left on Ken's arm.

Present day...  
"Yes, that's it. More power! Soon all of the Digimon will be gone... The world will be rid of the Wild Ones, free at last of their plague FOREVER!"

*Taichi*  
After college, Taichi had quickly risen to the task of ambassador to the Digital World. This job kept him in frequent touch with Koushiro, Jyou, and many of the others. A staunch defender of Digital rights, he was rarely if ever seen without Agumon by his side. That and his busy schedule put a cramp in his dating, but that was fine by him. There were more important things to do, and more issues to be fought than he had time for, anyway.

*Sora*  
As soon as Digimon started becoming known as a peaceful force in the world, Sora knew just what she was going to do. She was solely responsible for creating a whole new fad -- coordinated human/Digimon fashions. Sora herself was often seen in dresses of pink and blue, or with pink feathers in her hair. She traveled all around the world, hunting down the hottest fashions in every country, and spreading her own. Focusing entirely on the Digimon themselves, she rarely remembered the existence of the world from which they had come.

*Yamato*  
Yamato's pop-craze band, The Teenage Wolves, had quietly gone the way of most such things. Though its name was still zealously guarded by its most rabid fans, most people didn't even remember that it had ever been a factor. Yamato had gained a new interest in space during college, though, and had gone off to become an astronaut. This meant that he was often away from home, and had little time to do any work with the Digital World, but he did give speeches on the issue whenever he had any time at all. Rumor had it that he'd given Sora a ring before heading off on his first mission...

*Mimi*  
Mimi gained fame by having the first Digimon co-hosted television show. She scorned, however, those that claimed that was her plan all along, insisting that she got viewers because of her innovative cooking techniques. In order to maintain her image, she was always claiming that Digimon were perfectly ordinary, and refused to have anything to do with Digital politics.

*Koushiro*  
Having started unraveling the Digital World's mysteries at age eight, Koushiro hadn't skipped a beat in continuing. After finishing his graduate thesis -- a ground-breaking work on how to access the Digiworld's information from Earth -- he got himself a government grant, a team of specialists, and a few good computers. He is still considered the world's leading expert on Digital science, and a very strong pro-Digital voice.

*Jyou*  
As the first-ever Digital doctor, Jyou spent more time in the Digiworld than anybody else. His job was practically his whole life, and it was a very rare sight to see him put aside his white coat and leave his many patients. However, when he _could_ be convinced to come back to Earth, he always had a huge stack of papers with him, promoting Digital equity and ready to be published.

*Hikari*  
When she was 12 years old, Hikari knew exactly what she wanted to do, and her goals didn't change as she grew. Right out of college, she got a job as a Kindergarten teacher at a school for children with Digimon. There she helped a new generation of Chosen Children deal with their unique problems, until she was 25. At that point she moved back to Earth and West Shinjuku and took a new job and a new name, leaving her old life with Digimon behind for a while.

*Daisuke*  
Still secretly carrying a crush on Hikari, Daisuke seemed determined not to leave her alone. He followed her, noodle cart in hand, to West Shinjuku and continued on with his life like he didn't even notice the change. His opinion, mostly derived from his own partner, was that Digimon could take care of themselves and needed noone's help. That, and possibly also Hikari's wish for silence on the Digital issue, kept him from being active in any of the politics.

*Miyako*  
While she had accepted Ken and Hikari's coupling, Miyako had practically leapt upon Ichijoujji as soon as the pair had split up. Their relationship had only lasted a few fitful years, however. Miyako started working in Takeru's group -- a governmental job dealing with Digimon, was all he knew -- and he suspected an ulterior motive. She seemed to barely mind the breakup, and settled in to work hard, following Hikari's lead in adopting a new name and image. Her old adventures and partner seemingly forgotten, her dealings with the Digimon became strictly professional.

*Iori*  
During college, Iori seemed insistent to be constantly creating a Digital spectacle. Often he could be seen out on the quad, in all sorts of weather, shouting out his message of peace with the Digital World. More than once were campus police forced to break up near-riots and brawls between "God's people" and "Digital friends." Iori stuck mostly to his method of convincing the undergrads and his personal friends, rather than trying to go out to the larger public. "You can't convince all of the people, all at a time, but you sure can convince some of the people, one at a time," he was fond of saying. Now in law school, he has calmed down somewhat and refrains from public displays. Even so, he can still be heard arguing out the legal responsibilities of the planet to the one which it created.

*Ken*  
Although he loosened up and got into the social scene for a few years, this seemed to just confirm Ken's ideas about the iniquity of people. After breaking up with Hikari, he turned almost recluse. About Digimon, however, he did not regain his adversarial feelings. His opinion is that, though Digimon were created by humans, they have risen above the faults of the ancestors and taken life to a new level. However, he considers it his duty to fix his world and is now a private detective, going about his work with an almost manic energy, Stingmon always by his side. Considering Earth lost he wastes no time explaining about the perfection of the Digimon, instead instilling God-like fear of them into wrong-doers.

*Takeru*  
His Digimon destroyed in a fierce battle at the slight age of 15, Takeru was emotionally shattered. He withdrew from the rest of the group and everything involving Digimon, instead becoming obsessive about school. He absolutely refused to be called "TK," the last name Patamon had ever called him by. Besieged by offers of sympathy and help on every side, he lashed out, scaring away all but Hikari. She continued to talk to him -- usually eliciting no response -- but eventually even she gave up. With this act, Takeru cast himself completely into darkness, shattered his crest, and was almost unrecognizable as a human being for over a year. What finally ended it was a knock on his door by a man whom he had never seen... a man with an offer. From that day forward, he was no longer a nameless specter, haunting the world of the living for nothing better to do... He took a new name and new image, unrecognizable except to his closest of ex-friends. That day, he became Yamaki.

Opponents -- what few there were hidden among the secrecy of a project where not even the name "Hypnos" could find its way into the public -- opponents claimed, sometimes, that Yamaki acted out of fear from ignorance. Little did they know that they had the first part almost right, and the second completely wrong. _Sorrow_ is what begot fear; and fear was the birth of anger... then hate. Hate felt for those that had deprived him of one he'd considered a friend; hate for those that had fooled him into believing their feigned intelligence and emotion; hate for those that never should have been, and never shall be again.

One of his first tasks was to get high-end programmers to create the Hypnos mainframe. This had to be done with only a little care, since projects dealing with the Digital World were all the rage. Out of that group, though, he had to find people who shared the same views as he -- for whatever reason -- to stay on after completion of that stage and run the complex computers. Finding them was hard in the extreme, and he didn't completely succeed. However, Yamaki lucked out in his pick of a woman with her original career in computers shattered with the Digital revolution. She was willing to blame the Digimon for every ill in her life, and so could be persuaded over to his cause.

The other girl he found was an easy convert, at first. Wearing a miniskirt, sunglasses, and far more makeup than she needed to, some things about her personal life intrigued him, but as he wanted no prying into his, he did the same for hers. This woman -- Riley was her name -- seemed to have an almost intuitive way with the Digiworld interface, and a manner that suggested great familiarity. Often it seemed that he was more surprised about findings than she. But that, of course, was bordering on impossible. It must just be that some people had better poker faces than others. 

A main goal of theirs was to close the Digital World portals and keep each species on its own side where it belonged. This was something managed by the Digimon many times in the past, but Yamaki faced a problem that they hadn't -- secrecy. While the Digimon could alter codes wily-nily without worries of detection, that was a constant threat to Hypnos. In the end, they had to settle for second-best. They closed the rift to all of the Digital creatures, trapping them on whatever side of the Divide they had been on, but it remained open to humans. It had become standard practice for Tamers to live mostly on the other side, and most adults either worked there or let their Digimon stay there. As such, the change was not quickly noticed or too sorely felt by most.

For a long time things ran well, even if it was mostly research and development. They had gotten started on -- and mostly finished -- a new program. Juggernaut. Designed to blast through and destroy all the data in the Digital World, it would be the last and greatest step in the Digital saga. The only downside was that any humans in Digiworld at the time it was run would probably be destroyed as well. However, that was a small casualty to take to win the war they were fighting. A few lives for the good of humanity? Surely that was almost heroic.

But then, their plans started to run awry. More and more Digimon were managing to bioemerge, and they were becoming harder and harder to track and delete. If that wasn't bad enough, a few sought out humans to "befriend" for protection; children that refused to realize the dangers involved with what they were doing. These children even fancied themselves Digimon Tamers, and played around with the creatures using cards from the sickeningly popular card game. To make matters even worse, they occasionally got readings from other Wild Ones that stayed on Earth, but alone, without any chance of a Tamer realizing what they were doing was wrong and turning them in. And the unTamed Digimon slid out of the tracer locks as easily as they fooled people into thinking they breathed.

Things became even worse with the grand launch of the Juggernaut program. Instead of destroying the Digital World, it ripped the rift open again, letting the Wild Ones stream back through. And they were no longer angry and dangerous as the (albeit large) exception -- destruction was now their rule. Seemingly the years of increasing input by Hypnos had almost entirely destroyed their original "intelligence," and replaced it with the goal of the humans, reversed.

As such, Digimon confirmed that they were illogical, unthinking data that would be best destroyed. Only those Digimon partnered to humans were not active threats to humanity, and even they were unstable. Digivolving not only increased their power but also brought out their "natural" tendencies. Very few people still trusted Digimon at all; most of the would-be Tamers had fled. They were now at risk from the very Digimon they had tried to control, now out on the loose and looking for revenge.

Then the worst possible disaster at the worst possible time happened to Hypnos. It was destroyed. Every computer, every controller, even the building itself was turned into rubble. Only those working there escaped. With the only programming remaining a simple tracking and file-storage system on his laptop, there was nothing Yamaki could do. Outsmarted by the Digital World, unable to get more government support, with his dreams not gone but hopelessly out of reach, he prepared for the end.

Even though there was nothing he could do to stop the apocalypse, Yamaki didn't want to be the last to know of its coming. With this in mind, at Riley's insistence that he must do something, he did something he never thought he'd do again. He went to the newest Tamers for help. All he asked for was knowledge of what they were doing, and he gave them a com. device for that purpose. Let them think it was a selfless gift, if they would. Odds were that they would not be thinking anything for long, and it did not matter to him.

His heart had no place lower to sink as he watched them journey through the rift.

Yamaki returned to his apartment to await what he knew would come.


End file.
